Various medical patients exhibit involuntary control over their bladder and/or bowel. Although vesicostomy or an artificial sphincter implanted around the urethra are commonly used to provide partial control over the evacuation function of the bladder and to control continence, these solutions have drawbacks well known to those skilled in the medical profession and related arts. Other patients who achieve a modicum of control over their bladder functions are equally in need of a system to rehabilitate their nerve and muscle dysfunctions. Similar problems arise in respect to involuntary bowel control.
The physiology of the bladder and bowel is closely linked to the urethral muscle physiology of the pelvic floor (levator ani muscle) and its related urethral and anal sphincters. For the bladder to store urine and for the bowel to serve as a reservoir for feces, two opposite, but complementary, behaviors are found. In particular, the bladder and rectum must relax and the urethral and anal sphincters must remain contracted. The reverse is true during evacuation of either urine or feces, i.e., the urethral or anal sphincter will relax, along with the pelvic floor, and subsequently the bladder and rectum will contract.
The sequence will reverse once voiding and defecation is completed, i.e., the sphincters and pelvic floor muscles will revert to their tonic closure states and the bladder and rectum will revert to their storage states. This behavior has been demonstrated by simultaneous manometric (or EMG/pressure) recordings of this bladder/rectum, urethral/anal behavior during filling and emptying of the bladder. This sequence of events is well-established and is accepted universally.